


Lead Us Not Into Temptation

by ElwritesFanworks



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Bad Sex, Bisexuality, Catholic Guilt, Christmas Eve, Crisis of Faith, Cultural Catholicism, Drabble, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Internalized Homophobia, Lapsed Catholics, M/M, Men Crying, Queer Catholics, Random & Short, Religious Guilt, Religious Uncertainty, Repression, Roman Catholicism, Sexuality Crisis, Short One Shot, Uncertainty, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, so many issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 02:18:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9102088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElwritesFanworks/pseuds/ElwritesFanworks
Summary: They end up in bed together on Christmas Eve, but not in the way you'd think...





	

**Author's Note:**

> One (real) struggling queer Catholic working out his issues through a drabble about two (fictional) queer Catholics. (Enjoy.)

* * *

They wind up in bed together for the same reasons that they end up drinking together. It’s Christmas Eve. The Carisi clan has been hit by a nasty case of flu that managed to miss Sonny, but left him without plans. Barba had intended to spend the night alone. It’s late. It’s cold out. There’s a special on craft beer at a new hipster place they both feel too old for. The power’s out in Barba’s apartment.

Plenty of reasons. Take your pick.

There’s more to it than that – something unspoken. Not sexual tension – there isn’t any. (Sonny feels like a corpse shambling around in search of a funeral and one look at Barba confirms he feels the same.) Not the desperation and loneliness that eventually drives them together - though that’s part of it. It is, if Sonny had to articulate it, some shameful, squirming thing inside the ribcage of every good, pious boy who grows into the sort of man who looks at other men – even just once – and wonders ‘what if…’

It's the twinge of pain in an un-bent knee, the twitch of old muscle memory that makes Sonny move to cross himself when confronted with the horrors of particularly difficult cases. It’s the phantom weight of beads passing through his fingers when he stays up late, eyes blurred and burning as he tries to cram legal jargon into his sleep-muddled brain.

It’s the look of understanding that passes between both men when he admits, drunkenly, recklessly, for the first time in his life, that ‘sometimes Christmas is hard to take, y’know?’ And it must be written all over his damned, open face, because Barba’s mouth twists and he nods, thumbing at the condensation on his beer glass.

It’s all they need, really. The understanding that excuses shaking hands and alcohol-scented apologies breathed shakily in the dark of Barba’s apartment. _At least the heat’s back on. Lights should come on soon, too._ Unspoken words that wouldn’t quite convey all the non-verbal rawness in Barba’s eyes when his gaze darts, just briefly, to the small cross on the wall above the head. _Old habits._ Sonny’s got one up in his room too – is surprised, dizzy and slightly sick at the thought that they’re doing this so close to it – he’s always had to hide his in a drawer.

Barba’s hand down his pants feels as good as his own, maybe better, so Sonny suspects it’s mostly nerves that keeps him from staying hard. Barba doesn’t let him return the favour – batting his hand away in some desperate, self-serving move to keep the moral high ground aboard their ever-sinking vessel. When Sonny’s choked groans transmogrify into hyperventilation, Barba’s hand retreats and they lie there, shoulder to shoulder, and somehow the fact that his tears are soaking into the pillowslip on Barba’s bed is more mortifying than any semen stain or smear of lube. Barba’s quiet as the grave, stays so throughout, but he shakes too, and it’s a sinner’s comfort, to think they’re sharing some sort of release at last, but Sonny is grimly satisfied with the knowledge just the same.

He shuts his eyes against the tidal wave of uncertainty that rises in him as his breathing slows. He waits, tensed, as he feels Barba rise, hears him walk out. Faintly, the sound of a tap turning on, the rushing of water and oh – Barba is washing his hands. Barba is scrubbing them raw in the next room, and his voice shakes as he speaks words that Sonny doesn’t know, yet understands. The cadence is the same. _Forgive us our trespasses._ Sonny’s own hands clench into tight fists as his own words play back to him on loop, echoing in his head.

_Sometimes, Christmas is hard to take, y’know?_

 


End file.
